Foreign Policy > WW I

Breaking the Hindenburg Line

The “Old Hickory” Division led the breakout against Imperial German forces in 1918 -- at high personal cost. 

Don Brown | May 25, 2026

“Time will not diminish the glory of their deeds.”

General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I, spoke those words about America’s doughboys of the Great War. They ring as true today as they did a century ago. Yet while time has not diminished their glory, it has, tragically, diminished the memory of who they were -- these American soldiers of the “Great War” -- and what they sacrificed.

I have written 16 books, 15 of them on the U.S. military. Three focus on World War II -- Destiny, Old Breed General, and Last Fighter Pilot, which became a national bestseller on the Publishers Weekly list. Shortly after that success, I pitched a biography of Charles Denver Barger, one of the great American heroes of World War I. Every publisher who reviewed the proposal loved the story. They passed anyway. “WWII books still sell,” they told me. “WW1 books don’t.”

That is not just a publishing decision. It is a national shame. As our national attention has focused elsewhere, time has diminished the memory of their deeds.

This Memorial Day, one WWI division that sacrificed extraordinarily was the famed “Old Hickory” Division -- the 30th Infantry Division of World War I -- comprised of Tar Heels from North Carolina, Sandlappers from South Carolina, and Tennesseans from the Volunteer State, along with volunteers and draftees from across the country.

Nicknamed for President Andrew Jackson, whose roots ran deep in all three states, the division formed in 1917 at Camp Sevier,........

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